Wednesday, January 23, 2008

It would seem that this flu thing going around is hitting everyone twice and not to be one to be left out, I have once again spent the beginning of this week back in bed with a temperature and a runny nose. I have to say that the last couple of days have truly opened my eyes to what it must be to live ones life as a narcoleptic.

However, moving on and feeling once again my perky self I headed back to the gym to carry on with the training. Although after so much time off I was not really sure where to start. Should I go back to where I started from after my first relapse or should I just continue on as form. Right or wrong I decided to just push on and somewhere in the second half of my workout I felt a strange sensation surging up from my stomach and wondered to myself if it was just the need to pass gas.

Ok now… I know this may not be the most ladylike conversation, but truth be told exercise loosens the muscles and if done well, all the muscles. Not one person out there cannot admit to letting one rip in the middle of a yoga class, especially a yoga class! It is pretty much just part of nature.

When running outside one gives little thought to breaking wind as you are breaking a sweat, but when inside surrounded by people this simple bodily function becomes a whole other saga.

I weighed up my options. I looked to my left and there were two women running side by side and chatting, clearly friends. To my left was a personal trainer giving a first timer a hard going over on the treadmill. I decided that perhaps now might not be the most discreet of times to let out a silent yet deadly. And then I realised that that was not half the problem.

The funny feeling in my stomach was not a build up of gas… I needed to throw up.

I had two minutes left on my run and while quickly looking around for any sign of a bucket nearby I played battle of the wills with my body and my own bloody mindedness. Hell no! I only had one and a half minutes now left and if finishing that meant having to run to the bathroom to vomit afterwards then that was just the price I was going to have to pay. I told my body that I was sorry that I had pushed it too hard the first day back, and reasoned with it that it was for its own good.

Now I understand that this may all seem that the ramblings of a crazy person and lets face it, where is the sanity in deciding to run a marathon… hello that is 42 kilometres! Nevertheless I promised that this would be a no holes barred blog and I think I am covering every orifice in this particular blog… ok that was a joke.

So I finished my run and yes I am feeling pretty damn good about myself. Well I have felt so bad about not running that I have decided that I am no longer going to dread my runs because of how far back I have slid and I am going to attack every run with the tenacity and drive that I approached my first run… I am going to do this coz I sure as hell cannot fail! Smack that!

Sunday, January 20, 2008

Weight: 94.3 kilosSo I ran 3 times last week and lost 0.2 kilos. On average it is pretty average. Not too happy with myself and feeling sick again, so I am having a sulk. Ok well at least the scales went down. Some small consilation at the moment...

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

It has been a long month. A whole month of dealing with a sprained ankle and bronchitis and after a whole month of being too depressed to write anything I am back… and yes I am still running.

Last time I wrote I left you with a bruised and swollen ankle and although I could not run I was sure that it would only be a week and I would be back on the schedule. A week later I realised that there was more to it and went for x-rays to find that my ankle was in fact badly sprained. The doctor told me that it was a repeat injury from the sprain I had the year before and that the running had most likely triggered it. What does that mean for someone training for a marathon? Well it means that I needed to give it time to heal and then wear an air-brace every time I run in the future.

The idea of having to rest it was both a worry and a relief at the same time. I was relieved that I was not just overreacting and that I was going to have a set period of time where I could rest, recuperate and finally sort this problem out. Yet I was so worried that this would never a hundred percent be sorted out and that perhaps running was not the best idea full stop. Perhaps I should train to swim the English Channel instead…

Initially I was determined to keep my fitness level up and so headed back to the gym to do light cardio on the elliptical and lift weights, but within a week I had fallen sick to the winter cold and I had no energy to even get out of bed. The cold spread to my chest and so just walking up the stairs left me wheezing and catching my breath. I was beginning to feel like a walking, or better a limping ailment and I hated the feeling of self-pity that surrounded me.

On the up side I was still losing weight, but could feel that this was muscle rather than fat loss and I was dreading how my legs would feel the moment I started running again. I realised at this point that it is one thing to decide that you want to start running, to set targets and goals and go into it with such excitement and enthusiasm, and then there is restarting something when you were not even half way through.

This is why I could not write about it, because the only thought that was coming out of my head was, “We would have been doing the final practice run now”. And it is not as if we were staying where we were and could carry on as if nothing happened. For every week we missed we had to go a week back. It reached a point where I was so full of self pity that I thought we would just have to start over from scratch.

And then a cliché came to mind… When you fall you pick yourself up and start again. So what if we would have to start from the beginning and build ourselves up again! At least this time around we would be more prepared and perhaps we would progress quicker. It would be hard and would possibly take more determination than before, but if we were up for the challenge in the first place then we certainly were up for the challenge now.

So this week we weighed in and restarted our runs. I was not deterred too much that I had returned to 94.5 kilos. I was at that weight for so many weeks I guess my body is used to it. We thought we would see how we went and surprised ourselves by being able to do the 5 minute run/walk, so instead of being at the beginning of the 2 mile training program we were in fact half way through. That is not so bad… 4 weeks away from doing the full 2 mile run.

It has been a long month and I am so glad to put it all behind me.

And looking to the future, last week was the Tiberius marathon and my mentor ran the race in 3:19. Other than being unbelievably impressed and proud of her, I am re-inspired. Tiberius 2009… the FIRST marathon we plan on running. I hope to see you all there cheering us on!